


(I Thought) I Wanted You Gone

by mOther3



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Brief Mentions of Blood, Featuring, Gen, I threw an OC into this but they’re good I promise, Obligatory cake references, Platonic relationships for all, Post Portal 2, The Gang Goes Back To Aperture, Wheatley still has testing euphoria, apologetic wheatley, lots of dubious science!, tired chell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 11:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mOther3/pseuds/mOther3
Summary: “Oh... It’s you! Fancy bumping into each other like this. Listen, I’ve been meaning to tell you something. I know this is all a bit sudden, but here goes-“—In which a massive coincidence brings old enemies close as Aperture Science’s seemingly pointless testing comes to a sudden halt.





	1. A Cosmic Coincidence

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished portal 2 and I Have Feelings

It’d been more than a week on the surface. That was all she knew. The days started running together after the hunger, heat, and unbearable sun, started getting to her. 

She’d gone miles in every direction from the shed but found nothing. So she stayed close by. Aperture was all she knew. So she clung to it. 

The night sky was deeply profound. The empty space begged questions of unseen adversaries floating somewhere out there, the moon only brought neurotoxin-riddled flashbacks, and the stars made her feel so very small. 

She huddled next to her Companion Cube she’d lovingly taken care of, and waited out the night. 

Her reflection looked back at her from the polished side of the cube—the only memento of her strange and eventful time in Aperture. She was dirty, starting to get a bit gaunt, and terribly sunburnt. The dry air sucked the moisture from her body and left her nimble acrobatic abilities a fuzzy memory of the past. 

The cube winked at her. A point of light shone in the metal she’d so carefully polished. 

She watched it cautiously, slowly sitting up on an elbow as it grew brighter. 

**BANG**

The shockwave was deafening. It rippled through the surrounding fields and kicked up dust with it as a blinding light screamed low through the sky, connecting with the ground and sending a cloud of dust and fire into the air where it’d landed close by. 

She turned from her warped view of the event in the Companion Cube and stared at the cloud. 

——

There was a pit of smoldering grass and burnt soil about ten feet wide where it’d landed. 

Battered, singed metal twinkled under the moonlight. The meteorite shifted, squinting up at a familiar form looking down in shock. 

How convenient _she_ would be the one to find him. 

“Oh... It’s you! Fancy bumping into each other like this. Listen, I’ve been meaning to tell you something. I know this is all a bit sudden, but here goes-“ 

Her mouth moves soundlessly in the unmistakable pattern of his name, trying to wrap her head around the inexplicably improbable reunion. 

He had to tell her right away. And not just because he had been in space.

“I’m sorry.

Sincerely. 

I’m sorry I was bossy. 

And monstrous. 

And.

_I am genuinely sorry_.” 

Chell stood motionless for a moment. Then her knees buckled and she tumbled face-first into the crater. 

“Whoa whoa whoa! Calm down! Uh-! You don’t have to go falling all over the place!”

She settled right next to him, lying unconscious ... Now he was no expert in humans, but this wasn’t right. Her breath was light and short, skin a pale grey and read far too cool on his thermal sensors. 

Something had gone very wrong while he was in space. The waning euphoria of experiencing the entire network of Aperture Science had finally made its way out of his processing... Glados was out of her mind to throw a perfectly good (albeit very crafty) subject to the curb. She’d put her own selfish wants before the good name of Science! 

This wouldn’t stand! 

For the first time in his very long existence, Wheatley was going to make things right.


	2. Brainwaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who are you supposed to be?” 
> 
> “I’m an Aperture Science Companion Core Version 3.8 Alpha. It’s nice to meet you.“

Wheatley was going to make things right. He’d thought long and hard in space... the commotion getting there had rattled some old programs loose and gave him lots to consider. 

Aperture Science had lost its way. He’d thought about why he’d gotten such intense testing euphoria and why it’d gone so quickly. They’d been doing something wrong, or else the euphoria would’ve lasted.

He thought about the ceaseless testing, pushing of materials to make turrets to defend against a nonexistent threat. Why? Testing for what? 

He thought about why there were so many cores. And why he’d been there, awake, while the others sat useless in a broken stupor. Surely they couldn’t ALL be duds. That high a failure rate was unheard of in Aperture... except maybe test subject retention, though Chell had affected quite a few averages in that department with her involuntary participation and shocking ability to not die. 

Wheatley thought quite a bit about these things and realized what he needed to do as soon as he saw the human he’d guided. Even just seeing her again since being to space brought back the sensations of euphoric bliss he’d experienced in testing. Some basal instinct programmed into him had kicked in... Get the human. Check. Get back to the labs. That was next. The poor core burned with desire to follow these new urges. 

If only Chell weren’t out cold. 

“Okay, uh. I dunno if you can hear me, but if you can, it’s _really_, super important that we get back to Aperture.” Chell remained still, deeply asleep from the exhaustion and shock. “I’m gonna take that as a ‘no, I’m still unconscious’... Yep. Okay. Think. Gotta get out of here.” 

Chell twitched. Wheatley wished he had a body. 

He’d have to wait until she woke up again. At least in space he could wiggle his body to try to move. Here he was pinned to the ground by a floppy human he didn’t want to hurt by trying to move. Chell was his only chance at possibly righting things. 

“She really didn’t give you anything up here, huh.” Conversation with an unconscious body was better than the obsessive space core he’d spent a long week with. “You’re a toughie though, yup. Up in no time to kick our behinds.... I hope.” 

She looked so tired and small up close. Naked, without the Portal gun. There were still bruises and slashes across her face from their fight. He’d remembered breaking her skin with the blast shields trying to get her away. 

She’d yelped in pain and stumbled back when he struck her for the first time, Wheatley taking pause to note the trail of jewel red blood dripping down her cheek... Shame and bitter anger coursed through him for a moment as he moved on from the thought.

“Hello?” 

A quiet voice cut through the night, interrupting his thoughts. It didn’t come from Chell, but it was soft, faintly feminine, and childlike. 

“-huh? Whosthere?!”

Chell twitched again as Wheatley tried to shift and get a look at the source of the noise. 

A little face peeked over the lip of the crater to survey its contents. It was a cute little droid fitted with a squarish core perched atop its stout, cube body, and a reassuring heart emblazoned across its belly. A shining pink eye looked over the scene, focusing in on the figure inside. 

It perked up as soon as it spotted Chell and stumbled down to go to her side, moving about as gracefully as a cube with tiny limbs could. 

“You found her!”

“Who are you supposed to be?” 

“I’m an Aperture Science Companion Core Version 3.8 Alpha. It’s nice to meet you.“ 

“Uh. Pleasure. I’m Wheatley.” 

The core nodded and looked at him, meeting his skeptical eye contact with a reassuring gaze. “That’s a funny name for a personality core.”

“Hey! I picked that name out myself, thank you very much!”

It’s body moved with a quiet little laugh. “It’s funny because it’s a _human_ name. Humans choose names because they feel good to use. My name is just an operating system and a core function.”

“Right. Speaking of, the human crushing me right now is called Chell.” He motioned towards the human with his eye and a brief movement of his body that made her twitch again and slump further into him.

“I know. I’m hers.” It lifted Chell from him with a calculated ease (revealing it was much stronger than it looked), moving her to rest on her side using long coiled arms. 

“Wait, hold on. Are you a companion cube?” It turned to him after settling Chell in a safe position, retracted its arms back to a normal length, and shook its head no (which shook the rest of its body, nearly causing it to lose its balance.) 

“I used to be. I’ve spent enough time with her to begin operations as a fully functional _core_.” A note of pride sung out in its little voice as it announced its successful metamorphosis, “Chell made sure I was always with her. She’s a good human.”

Wheatley tried to recall ever hearing about this shocking new development. Companion cubes were just dead weight with hearts stamped on them to test the limits of subjects’ empathy! 

But surely enough, this was an Aperture designed core and body speaking to him. The serial number stamped onto a plate riveted to its side made that clear. 

Aside from the confusion rattling through his mind, Wheatley recognized the creeping sensation of satisfaction in response to something done right on his part. But he hadn’t even done anything!

The cube plopped down beside Chell, pushing some of her tangled hair from her face with gentle gloved hands. 

“So why are you with her? Shouldn’t you be in the facility?”

Wheatley’s blue optic tracked all of this, his own small body buzzing with instinct as the cube babied its companion. It was hard to think over the feeling, but whatever this new core was, it was very important. And it had asked him a question. What was it again? Thinking so much was hard work. 

“I ah. Fell from space. She stuck me up there after I...” He probably shouldn’t tell the cube about trying to kill Chell. Everything he’d known about cubes, aside from them being inanimate, was that they were always characterized as loyal, “-After we accidentally went through a portal shot on the moon. Crazy, I know.”

“Is that why she was dismissed from the facility?” It fell for his coverup. Thank goodness. 

“No. Glados hates her guts.” 

“... But Glados made me go with... Chell is still her test subject. Remotely. I gather data on human functioning and emotion... She isn’t doing very well out here though.”

‘Human functioning and emotion’

The words stirred something in Wheatley. They felt right. The same kind of right feeling that the idea of going back to Aperture gave him. 

“We need to go back.” The word’s came from him before he even knew what he was saying. 

“What?”

“I don’t know, I just get these uh... Brainwaves that tell me things. This one’s pretty loud and I think we should definitely go back to Aperture with you and Chell.” 

——

Deep inside the underbelly of the labyrinthian testing facility, its matriarch watched as her well laid plans crumbled in the face of a little blue moron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve always wondered why companion cubes are present in Aperture. I mean glados could definitely just be trying to get under chell’s skin by talking abt how they have to be incinerated and whatnot but what if they did have a function? And what if that function was why they’re so commonly destroyed?


	3. How To Convince A Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay okay uh.. how do I explain this... I thought a lot in space—I know I’m a moron and all but hear me out—we’ve been running the wrong tests on you—Wait stop! Don’t leave!”

“Mm...”

Chell’s head throbbed. But that wasn’t new. 

What was new, however, were the chattering voices cutting through her groggy stupor. 

“-ake up! You can do it!” 

“She’s moving, lo-“ 

She recognized one of the voices. It seized her body up with memories and cleared the mental fog in an instant. 

Dark, paranoid eyes met Wheatley’s cheery blue optic and he wiggled a hello to the human who shot up and scrambled back, looking for a gun on her arm that wasn’t there. 

“Aw really? I said I was sorry! I thought I did a pretty good job of telling you how much I screwed things up!” 

“You’re scaring her!” Chell whipped around to face the core she didn’t recognize as it hurried to her side. She jerked her hand away from its grasp as it tried to reassure her, and the poor thing visibly drooped in disappointment, Wheatley chortling to himself about the thing not being any better at this than him. 

“Oh right, I look different now. Chell, I’m your Companion Cube...” 

She blinked once, twice, then looked over towards where she’d left the thing. 

There was a patch of dirt where it’d been sitting, nothing more. 

“See? You wrote your name on me.” It motioned to a patch of singed metal on its side. “Oh, right, the incinerator.” A delicate thumb brushed away caked on ash to reveal a small carving. ‘c h e l l’ was spelled out in jagged letters. 

Vividly, Chell remembered. 

She’d spent hours in the chamber, sitting in front of the incinerator with the cube between her and it. No matter what Glados said, she couldn’t bring herself to put the thing into the fire. It was comforting, for some reason. 

Urged on by hunger and thirst, Chell spent her last few moments with her cube etching her name into the side with one of the ends of her long fall boots. If she ever happened to see one again, she’d know if it was hers. 

And somehow, the bubbly little bot standing before her, was the very same cube. It’d been so damaged and singed before that she hadn’t been able to find the marking...

Chell found herself hugging it, hot tears welling in her eyes. Gentle hands met her hug and held her in a comforting embrace. 

A soft gloved finger wiped tears from Chell’s cheeks as they pulled apart, glowing pink optic watching her with concern, “Why are you crying?”

The human shook her head and smiled a bit, rubbing a tentative finger over the etching of her name. This was the first being she’d ever been vulnerable with. She’d spent some of her darkest hours trying to wrap her head around the fact she’d have to destroy it. And yet, by some miracle, here it was, comforting her once again. 

The Companion Core watched her move with rapt attention, absorbing every second of Chell’s response to the question. After a moment, it brought a little hand to meet the human’s and squeezed it faintly. This was a human demonstration of empathy, it’d learned. Before Chell was forced to incinerate it, she’d done the same thing holding onto the corner of the cube and whispered a hoarse ‘I’m sorry’.

Chell took the core’s hand up and squeezed back, sending a jolt of satisfaction through the thing. It’d communicated with her successfully! 

“Your friend here says we need to go back to the labs.” 

“Friend. Hah. About that-“ the fiery glare directed towards Wheatley was all the new core needed to know about their prior relationship, “You don’t have to rub it in! Did you blank out during my whole ‘I’m so super sorry’ thing?! Because I’m super sorry!” 

Chell’s angry glare didn’t let up. 

“Okay okay uh.. how do I explain this... I thought a lot in space—I know I’m a moron and all but hear me out—we’ve been running the wrong tests on you—Wait stop! Don’t leave!”

Chell didn’t stop as she stood up, shakily brushing the dirt from her jumpsuit. 

“So that was the wrong thing to say! Uh-! I promise this is important just listen!”

She turned around, rage burned in her eyes. Wheatley had used her constantly with his innocent banter and helpless facade throughout the facility. He wouldn’t anymore. 

“what.”

This shut him up for a second. She’d spoken. He collected his jumbled thoughts as best he could, but the best he could muster was disorganized rambling. 

“I... uh. When I was in there in the driver’s seat. It was like it wasn’t even me. Something took over. Faulty programs, I dunno. Whatever happened made me want to test real bad. You know that. I’ll skip that. But there was a reason for the testing. It’s not just to watch you flail around with boxes even if it does feel real good to watch, Chell.” 

Her eyes narrowed. He had to pull this together.

“Um.... I want to fix Aperture. Something’s wrong, that’s all I know. And as you know, I’m a limbless core so I can’t really do that on my own-” 

She wasn’t buying it. Time for the last resort. 

“Also I will give you cake for helping. That’s a promise. Cake promise.” 

Chell had heard enough. 

A little voice interrupted, pulling her attention away from Wheatley. 

“I know you don’t like him, but... There’s stuff to keep you alive in Aperture. Food, water. I’ve seen you struggling. I know you’re stubborn, your file mentions it at least twenty times, but you’re dying out here.” 

Defeated, Chell slowly turned to look at her cube. She was dying, and she knew full well the hazardous oasis beneath their feet was her best bet to keep on surviving. Unfortunately, her only line of defense this time would be an imbecilic core (who unfortunately knew the layout of the entire facility) and a seemingly harmless cube covered in hearts that she couldn’t say no to.


End file.
